eastpaw's yeast pause

Full contact against Silat and Karate update 2

2009-11-03T20:24:00.000+08:00

Though I was pretty sure my injuries from my recent sparring matches were not serious, I saw my Chinese physician anyway. The masterful Dr Chong took but a glance and confirmed that I had only minor external injuries. Pulled and bruised muscles, mostly. He pinched three acupoints on my shoulder and side - rather painfully, I might add - and my back immediately felt 70% better. The bruise on my ribs he didn't even bother treating beyond slapping a medicated plaster on it. So, looks like I'll be back in training in no time at all.

***** has read my blog post and viewed the videos, and he was "less than impressed" with our performance. Gotta love British understatement, haha! He's set us a long list of questions to answer to help us analyse how we managed to muck up so bad. Time to do some homework.

Full contact against Silat and Karate update 1

2009-11-02T23:43:00.000+08:00

I've just updated my post on our recent sparring experience with videos and a more in-depth discussion of the fights.

You can read it here.

Full contact against Silat and Karate

2009-11-02T05:03:00.005+08:00

Greg and I did some full contact sparring with Macan Pasrah Silat and Ashihara Karate guys (and gals!) last Thursday. It was a very good experience in many ways. Here's a clip of highlights put up by the organiser, Zul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nykkvNMAn9o

Yeah, it doesn't show that much. I think he'll put up full fights soon though. In the meantime, here're some lower quality clips of our fights.

Greg's match

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-m9WM9bg8g

Greg fought only this one time, because the fight ended with his Karate opponent nailing him in the nuts with a power kick. :p It was clearly an accident, and the other guy was very, very apologetic afterwards.

As you can see, Greg walked in floaty and got cut down with leg kicks very quickly. The second one got him in the back of the knee and swept him down cleanly. Once he got up though, he was much more clear-headed albeit still floaty. He went in to connect with the opponent through his centreline and thereby keep him off-balance and ineffective. Interestingly, he found it very hard to do so with a waijia guy, as he wouldn't move in one piece in response to a peng force. (I was later to find out the same thing in my matches.) Still, by moving in continuously, he could maintain control of his opponent's structure to an extent and keep him from doing anything effectual (though we must be aware it could have been just unfamiliarity with the tactic on the opponent's part).

The accident happened around the time the video was cut off. Greg was once again connected to the Karate man and moving in, but he couldn't attack either because he had not yet practised any body level attack he could launch from that position and with that connection! Oops. It was against the rules to hit anywhere other than the protected torso, and he was left wondering what to do next. As his connecting arm relaxed a bit, the opponent threw a front kick which unfortunately went straight into the groin. And that was that.

When the Karate guy came over to apologise later on, Greg told him what we both felt: it was his own fault for not guarding his groin better. A proper santi stance protects the groin area very well, but it's obvious in the video that he wasn't in such a stance when connecting. No surprise since we learnt connection in a high Wu Taiji bow stance, which was the very stance he used automatically. I'll betcha ***** wouldn't get kicked in the groin so easily though. Gotta ask him what had gone wrong here.

My first match

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-g2huQ41Lk

My first fight was almost as awful as my sparring matches with Alex the other week. The very first thing I did on the mat was walk right into a powerful roundhouse kick aimed at my lowest floating ribs. I was literally doubled over from the impact, and it took me a moment to figure out why I was suddenly so much shorter than my opponent, haha! It took me almost half a minute to regain my breath; in a real fight, that's game over, man. The rest of the fight was mostly me getting pummelled by the other guy as well. No other heavy hit landed, but I got swept off my feet many times.

At 0:57 and 1:41, I was taken down with a sweep and a trip respectively. The sweep was pretty clean, though my opponent's lack of follow-through meant I only went to my knees. Still, against a groundfighter, that would be a terrible position to be in. The trip was much better. Though I rolled with him and ended up on top with a fist aimed at his face, I would again have been in trouble if he had been a groundfighter.

At 1:13, my opponent delivered an illegal punch to my mouth. He was sorry, but to me, that was entirely my mistake for not guarding well. Sure, the rules say you can't clock someone in the jaw, but if you often fight with that in mind, you'll develop a bad habit of leaving your face open - one I might already have.

At 1:20, I tried to relax my arms, which were much too stiff from fingers to shoulders. That didn't do me much good, to be honest, and I was equally rigid through the rest of the bout.

At 1:34, I backed away from a side kick, a big defensive no-no that I unfortunately kept committing throughout my fights that night. Always move around or into a kick, or a chain kicker would have a field day chasing you down.

The one time I tried to throw a kick at my opponent's chest (2:40), he caught my foot and neatly sent me tumbling. Very bad kick, meet very practised leg-catcher.

In this fight, I was floaty (because of nerves and the body padding), blind (because my myopia's a thousand degrees and because I was mentally unfocussed), and slow (because I haven't been training to fight for several years now and just because I suck), and I generally acted more like a punching bag than a sparring partner. My stepping was spectacularly atrocious. My feet stepped high rather than skimmed the floor, and my centre kept rising and falling as I moved. At one point, I even managed to somehow fall onto the other guy's leg, bruising up my back so badly that I've been out of action for a few days. Wonderful.

Match 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJgBcrxqDN0

Fight two was with a girl. That's always a tricky situation because if you lose to a girl you look pathetic, but if you beat her up you look just as bad. I decided to play defence and only hit occasionally. When I did attack, I did not press the attack too hard.

But this was a great fight for me because it allowed me to refocus myself. Before I started, Percy grabbed my shoulders and pressed me into the ground. I was immediately much, much more rooted, and in fact could feel my qi spiralling into the ground and coming back up at me. He then touched my temples and pulled me up, adding upright structure to my root. I didn't want to lose that feeling, so I spent the whole fight just focussing on being song and rooting/being integrated. I still lost half of it the moment I stepped in the ring, but I was definitely much more neijia than in the first match. My second opponent hit pretty hard, to be honest, so it was lucky for me I was much looser now.

The fight went well enough, with all her sweeps not only failing to budge me but also felling her instead. No hits of consequence landed on me, though I did ignore several hits that were too light to do damage and let them land harmlessly on my torso. Had completely forgotten we were supposed to be point fighting. :p I'm sure those were considered points for her.

The first kick she threw (0:04) I received on my rear hand and completely voided, as is obvious in the video. It must have looked like a solid hit to the body from the referee's perspective though, which is understandable. I spent a moment explaining what had happened but then decided it wasn't important.

At 0:19, she threw a series of kicks at me which I could see and therefore block easily. I then returned a weak punch to her torso. However, blocking kicks from a stationary position is silly. I should've charged in as she was kicking and hit her with an elbow or shoulder. Still, she was a girl, and I had decided to be defensive. At 0:40, I successfully defended against another combo from her and unintentionally pressured her off the mat. I had enough presence of mind to pull back my return salvo before I had fully launched it, but looked pretty darned awkward doing that. :p

At 0:24, she tried to sweep me but I managed to keep both feet on the ground. At 1:42, as I moved in to pressure her, she attacked with a retreating sequence which I managed to deflect. She ended with another sweep attempt that did not work.

I did occasionally try practising what ***** had taught us in Taiji, moving in to stick to her with some success. The match finally ended when she went on her back and was too tired to get up. Can't blame her since I was just stubbornly remaining in Immovable Tree mode throughout the fight, inadvertently causing her to expend lots of energy running around me trying to take me down.

Interestingly, despite retaining my visual handicap, I could clearly see all the attacks launched at me in this second fight (and later in the third as well). I was unable to see anything in the first match; my vision there was just a blur of colour. This strongly suggests that lack of mental focus and not myopia was the chief cause of my first round blindness.

Match 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vmZgHNGOM

My last fight was against another guy and it went ok too, at least from a "real fight" perspective. Again, all I did was root and wait. I wanted to dart in with an elbow strike counter (pizhang variation) several times, but my lack of practice meant that I felt too clumsy and slow to make an impression and ended up not actually doing it. So I stood there and he threw right roundhouse kicks and I ate them all up with my left elbow. Which was really quite dumb since I should have been moving in to intercept the kicks instead. Anyway, soak up hits with my elbow I did, and I was quite surprised he was able to take so much punishment to his shin.

At 0:31, my opponent tried to sweep my front leg and got scolded by his coach for attacking wrongly. Perhaps because it was not a good sweep to begin with, I could feel it and instinctively transfer my root entirely into the other leg, leaving the attacked leg empty. But I still ended up in a stupidly awkward position that he should have taken advantage of. A similar situation happened at 1:08, and this time I at least responded quickly enough with a root-shift and a weak peng to avoid going sideways. Still no counter from me though. My defence at 1:37 against another sweep was rather blah.

At 1:16, I got swept to my knees again. :( Sure, I ended up with my fist cocked at his face (from watching the vid, I think I might have accidentally hit him too), but it's not good that I went down at all. At least I managed to keep both my feet at 2:22, but I think he must have been tired by then and not sweeping as well. Or maybe I had gotten more used to that particular attack.

At 1:40, I attempted to throw a series of bengquan but ended up clumsily imitating a Karate white belt. And then I thought I would be smart and try that stupid ah beng stomp kick to the chest again and got thrown cleanly once more. I must say his timing on that catch was as excellent as my kick was bad.

At 2:20, 2:35, I again attempted to bengquan my opponent, but again my body could not remember how to do the move. As Greg's noted, I was all arm, and my arms completely lacked the torquing and whipping characteristics of bengquan.

All in all, as in the second fight, I maintained structure to a degree and was largely safe against both sweeps and strong hits. I was still unable to effectively attack or counter-attack though, and none of my hits was at all Xingyi-like. Finally, Zul, his coach who was also the event's organiser and referee, warned me that if I remained so passive in a real tournament I would get disqualified. I then started attacking, but the other guy was so tired by then that he could not even put up a guard or move out of the way. The match ended soon after that.

Thoughts

I was surprised how hard my opponents could hit, but I shouldn't have been as these were people used to full-contact fighting. Come to think of it, it was incredibly stupid-arrogant for me to walk into someone else's place and fight with their well-conditioned athletes having trained fighting drills only twice in total in the last few years. I'm in my thirties and rather out of shape, and I've not done physical conditioning (punching bags or receiving medicine balls or whatever) for almost a decade. ***** had cautioned me to toughen up my body before going full-contact with anyone, and I had blithely ignored that advice completely, trusting to mystical qi powers to protect me.

On the other hand, I did come away from three encounters with People Who Wanted To Hurt Me with nothing more serious than a black spot on my lower lip courtesy of my first opponent, mild rib bruising from the first match (nothing compared to what I've had before), and a slightly achy left elbow from blocking all those kicks. Oh, and a painful back injury from accidentally falling on someone's leg. :p

Ah, but while I had taken no real damage from my opponents, I had done no real damage to them either. I had assumed from past experience that they would keenly feel even a light bengquan or hupu through the padding, but as it turned out, I couldn't perform either one to save my life. I've well and truly lost my old Xingyi, which saddens and frightens me a bit. But I guess it's a necessary sacrifice if I am to develop higher level neijia skill. There was a bad moment the other day during which I had contemplated - very seriously, if only for a fleeting instant - giving up my current training journey and returning to the old fighting structure and style that I had once loved. But that would go against the wisdom of Zhuang Laoshi, *****, and Guo Shifu. It would be extreme foolishness.

However, we really should have at least done sparring drills taken from our old style before going in for this series of fights (we presently don't know enough Ma Bagua or Taiji to even try to use them in a match). It was clear from our matches that all our opponents (including the girl) had better speed, timing, coordination, and reflexes than we did. We only seem to be good as sandbags right now. Guo Shifu saw short vids of Greg and me sparring the other week and was thoroughly disgusted. He said he didn't see any semblance of neijiaquan in there at all. Ouch. But unfortunately true. I can only imagine what he would say if he saw these clips as well. :/

I'm thinking that it would be very useful for us to meet with all these guys again and practise together every now and then. If possible, I'd like us to practise our stuff on them doing their stuff and vice versa. Moves that work one way on a Taiji guy seem to work another way on a Karate or Silat guy, so such cross-style training would be very, very helpful. It would also help us avoid bullshitting ourselves into thinking we're all that when it's all just auto-suggestion. If and when we can send someone from an external style flying with a light touch, we'll know we've really got it. And they would get to hone their skills on people who move and react very differently than their dojo mates, which I'm sure would be useful to them as well.

Speaking of the other guys, the 8 fights involving neither Greg nor me can be found here, thanks to the Karate group. May I recommend bouts 5, 8, and 9? It seems all the fighters needed a round or two to warm up, so they performed much better in the later matches. If I had to pick a favourite fighter, I would choose the Karate guy in the blue top. His judgement and control were impressive.

It is readily apparent from these fights that the Karate and Silat guys all had better timing, conditioning, and reflexes than we two did. Also, they all clearly had gone in with a game plan in mind, and each had a few well-drilled counters and combinations in their repertoire. Greg and I, in contrast, had started trying to figure out what to do only as our opponents launched their assaults. I think, for us, Michael's words pretty much sum the whole thing up:

You guys didn't train any sparring before the bouts! Goodness. Like going for exams without studying.

Guilty as charged. :/

Crossing over

2009-10-23T20:37:00.000+08:00

Someone just put up one of our old Xingyi training vids onto Youtube. This was, what? 2005? 2006? A long, long time ago anyway. Look how thin we were then! Good times, good times.

I can now see lots of problems with our form in this vid. Among other things, our upper and lower bodies didn't always coordinate well and we weren't rooted enough. We were rather well-practised though, and moves like these flowed easily and automatically from us in free sparring.

Zhuang Laoshi gets Greg with a Bengquan after tying his arms up

Not the case now. Greg and I sparred with two new friends yesterday and found our footwork, mindset, distancing, and reflexes a huge mess. We hadn't realised just how much our fighting skills had deteriorated in the last three years, but it shouldn't have been a surprise to us. What should we have expected from 2.5 years of inactivity followed by 5 months of foundation work in arts which use very different fighting paradigms? We don't even generate power the same way we used to.

In my earliest Xingyi training, we focussed on relaxing the entire body, tensing the sinews (not muscles!) suddenly and momentarily at the point of contact. When we progressed some, we learnt to instead torque specific sinew groups and expand specific joints, causing power to ripple from the feet to the hands. Towards the end of our 5 years of Xingyi, Zhuang Laoshi was telling us to stop all tensing of anything so as to move toward a higher level of fajin, but we left training before we could make any real headway there.

Two and some years later, we started first on our Taiji and then our Bagua journeys, and we found that both schools advocated the "soft touch" type of fajin that Zhuang Laoshi was leading us towards at the end. So here we are trying to convert our old harder spiralling-whipping jin into something simultaneously powerful as a speeding truck, and soft and light as air. What we currently have instead is powerful as a puff of air and subtle as a moving truck. :p

More training, more training.

How should we respond to beggars?

2009-10-21T18:53:00.001+08:00

I was approached thrice by beggars today, the first two times by old ladies with tissue paper to sell and the last by a young man with a scripted bowing, scraping please-give-me-70-cents routine.

Two or three years ago, I would have responded warmly and given more than was asked for. All three times today, I declined to help. Each time, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, because I should not be encouraging begging. But is that really the right thing to do? Have I just been hardened by all the deceit I've encountered out there?

-----

While writing this post, I was approached by a third old lady with tissue paper. I gave her $2 and invited her to sit down for dinner with me to see how I would feel about it afterwards. Certainly, my simple conscience feels better now. I've at best done a good thing and at worst been suckered of just $2. But I'm plagued still by a nagging sense that I may have made a mistake - the exact same discomfort I'd felt after the first three encounters.

What would you do, reader, and why would you do it? Which course of action is the morally superior one?

Katong Laksa 2

2009-10-21T00:45:00.000+08:00

Hm. Very strange. And there I was thinking I was clever to use Katong Laksa as an analogy for martial arts. Looks like it had already been done to death two years ago on a local martial arts forum that I recently started posting in. I'm wondering now if I had read that thread some time ago and plagiarised the idea unconsciously. :(

image source: http://www.radiantdarling.com/press

Ah well.

Wolverine - The Musical! (Now with lyrics and an mp3 download link!)

2009-10-20T23:29:00.012+08:00

Thanks, Geraldine, for the link. :D

The Indy Mogul guys have made an mp3 of the songs available here. If you feel like singing along too, I've transcribed the lyrics below. Have fun torturing your family and friends!
---

I'm hunting in the woods again

With claws of Adamantium

These fuckin' things can chop through anything

I'll chop apart that redwood tree

And slice the wings off of a bee

I'm not a circus freak

I'm Wolverine

---

No-one knows my pain

No-one knows my hell

My unbreakable frame

Is just a prison cell

I can't remember before

I think I fought in some wars

How did I get these muttonchops?

My wife was taken away

Now I'm in love with Jean Grey

But she's involved with Cyclops

I can heal any body part

Except this broken heart

---

It's gonna be a brand new day

'Cos Sabretooth is gonna pay

I'm gonna slice and dice my troubles away-hey!

Economic divide inevitable

2009-10-20T11:01:00.001+08:00

In one of my earliest blog posts, I had groused about how the economic divide was widening. Last night, MM Lee Kuan Yew not only admitted knowledge of the expanding gulf (though his explanation for it was different from mine) but also stated that it is an inevitable consequence of global capitalism. This probably means that the government's stance is to not waste resources trying to fix something that can't be fixed then. In other words, they really aren't going to do anything about this.

So, should we rant and rave, froth at the mouth, and wave signs of protest outside governmental institutions? Well, actually, no. Reading my post again now, it's clear to me that I had in fuzzy-headed fashion been blaming the government for not doing something to redress the problem. But the question here is: what can the government do about it?

Should we go communist and wipe out all classes? History has shown us that we aren't ready for such a social system: we're too selfish and resources are too limited. Should we institute a minimum wage system? Sounds nice, but then our people are going to lose even more jobs to cheaper foreign labour. Should the cost of living be pressed down? Definitely yes, but how is that supposed to be accomplished? If anyone out there has a workable plan, please do speak up. Maybe we should rob the rich to feed the poor (i.e., implement an unemployment or low income dole) - but anyone with half a brain would recognise the myriad of problems with that notion. So, what can the government do? If anyone says, "Pay the ministers less so everyone can be wealthy and happy", I'm going to punch you in the stupid face. That does not begin to solve the problem. At all.

Let's just stop and think for a second: why do we blame the government for socioeconomic inequality? Because they're the government, and they're supposed to keep us warm and safe and happy. Just like how your father and mother were supposed to keep you warm and safe and happy when you were a baby in diapers. Basically, it's a puerile instinct parallel to the dependence of the infant on the parent that we have failed to grow out of. There's a problem we can't solve, but dad and mum are infallible, so if we just cry long and hard enough, they will fix it for us.

image source: http://blog.syracuse.com/family/2008/02/is_your_toddler_really_human_n.html

At some point in our lives, we learn that dad and mum aren't infallible. They cannot fix anything and everything. We have to learn to solve a lot of our problems for ourselves. At that point, many of us feel the floor fall away beneath us. Suddenly, we are not so safe anymore, not so loved by the whole world. It is when fear first really chomps down on our ankles and refuses to let go. But most of us eventually kinda get over the whole sense of betrayal and unfairness and learn to stand on our own.

Would it not be sensible then for us to also stop expecting the government to be a parent that should be perfect, stop crying foul and throwing tantrums, stop expecting to wake up one day with all our problems solved for us, and instead take responsibility and start to fend for ourselves?

Who's a sceptic then?

2009-10-18T13:51:00.003+08:00

Scepticism is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

1 : an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object
2 a : the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain b : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics
3 : doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation)

That unfortunately doesn't help us understand what a sceptic is, for someone whose cognitive mode is exemplified by "suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism" could be an agnostic, a scientist, or a cynic. Even the dictionaries often fail us when we seek the most precise of definitions.

However, Peter Suber makes clear here (great resource; read it!) that original scepticism was simply an attitude of inquiry. A sceptic was a person who understood that he did not yet know about things and was asking questions to try and remedy that situation.

Skeptics said instead, "I personally do not know at the moment but I am trying to find out."

Compare this position with the following:

I know. (Faith.)
I do not know, and it is unknowable. (Academic scepticism.)
I do not know, but I know that is untrue. (Faith in negation disguised as scepticism. In other words, cynicism.)

Positions 1 and 2 are easy enough to understand. Position 3 is the tricky one, and it is the one most often adopted by sorta-smart, sorta-educated individuals who boast of being sceptics. For instance, someone - let's call him Adrin - may say, "Science has not managed to find evidence of telepathy, so telepathy must be false." Is that truly a sceptical position or a cynical one? Is the speaker claiming knowledge or lack of it?

Classical Sceptics of course don't believe they can never find the truth. That position is called Academic Scepticism (#2). Adrin is clearly not an Academic Sceptic, since he claims to know the truth - that telepathy does not exist. However, could he be a Classical Sceptic who has arrived already at a factual conclusion? The answer here is also "no", for he has not collected enough evidence to confirm the blanket statement he has made*.

*Scientists understand that even findings published in scientific papers are not necessarily right, but the typical person - including many science degree holders - fails to appreciate the distinction between absolute proof and mere evidence.

In fact, he is a cynic. He disbelieves in something that someone else believes in. Though he might have evidence to support his disbelief, this evidence is invalid or at least non-confirmatory. In other words, his disbelief is dogmatism. He is just a cynic and no different from the people he accuses of blind faith. He might happen to be right and telepathy might be a sham, but he's still just a cynic. Hey, you have 50/50 odds of being right when you declare without knowledge that something either exists or doesn't, ya know. Make enough declarations and your chances of being right at least once will darn near hit the roof. (50% for one declaration, 75% for two, 87.5% for three, and so on.)

At this point, I must admit that I am not a sceptic. I do believe in some things just because they were told to me, or because I have seen some evidence for them, or because they intuitively seem true, or because it is easier to believe in them than not to. But then again, is anyone truly a sceptic? Do you believe that you are real? Yes? Why, then, you are a dogmatist. Do you believe the Earth is round? Do you believe the floor beneath you remains there when you leave the room? Do you believe you are still you when you are asleep and unable to observe yourself? Yes? Hello, fellow dogmatist.

The dogmatist asserts that something is true. He makes judgments he is willing to stand by. The skeptic suspends her judgment; she waits until she is sure, which may be never. Suspension of judgment (in Greek, epoche), not doubt and not denial, is the skeptic's characteristic activity.

Of course, this does not mean a person cannot be a part-time sceptic. For instance, I may not be sceptical about the world being roundish, but I'm quite sceptical about the martial arts I practise. I recognise that I do not know, I ask questions all the time, I test assumptions, and I'm willing to accept most things in neijia practice only provisionally. When I feel an "electric current" run powerfully up my spine during zhanzhuang, I accept it to be qi, but I'm aware it may just be my imagination or something else and am open to stronger alternative interpretations.

If one is going to lay claim to a sceptical position, then, one needs to be clear on what one questions and what one accepts completely if one is unwilling to sound like an idiot or a fraud. Sadly, too many people are better served by the following description on the Martial Development blog:

Overzealous amateurs, posing as skeptics and debunkers, rail against any demonstration or discussion of kungfu that exceeds their own ability and experience.

Discussions with idiots and liars

2009-10-18T12:29:00.000+08:00

When engaging in discourse with a stranger, I typically begin with the assumption that they are mentally competent and honest. Though probably naive, that assumption is a condition necessary for a meaningful discussion: if someone is either stupid or dishonest, what sort of rational conversation could you have with them? It is therefore always a rude shock to me when I realise at some point in the debate that the other person is either incapable of comprehending the simplest ideas and logical flows being presented or is seeking to "win" the argument by creating and tearing down strawmen (e.g., Hans Liu in this thread or Anon 2:50 commenting here). It is testimony to my immaturity that my emotional reaction at that point is usually ire. How dare this person be so stupid? How dare this person be so underhanded? Sometimes, I manage to stop myself from ridiculing the offender publicly.

Unfortunately for me, 50% of the world is dumber than average (sorry, bad statistical joke that is possibly non-factual, depending on the current specific intelligence distribution of the people around the 50th percentile). Besides that, most people don't care about nuances and specifics, value expedience over exact truth, are unaware of their own incompetence, and/or are unable or unwilling to admit to having made a mistake.

Do you think those guys would get it if I sent them this?

I think that extending literacy to the general population was a bad idea*. Too many people have no ideas of value to contribute to the world, and all they end up adding is obfuscation of the good sounds. The very worst are the ones who are smart and educated enough to sound convincing to the dumb majority but who are not smart and educated enough to actually make real sense. These are the people who mislead others and cause problems through constantly thinking and acting like they are right when they are not. They are so sure of their own positions that they do not question themselves. And even if they do on a rare whim question themselves, they are fatally unable to detect errors in their own judgments.

But, you know, the trick is this: how am I to know that I'm not one of them?

* Oh, don't get your panties in a twist. You know I don't mean it.

Katong Laksa

2009-09-26T23:03:00.003+08:00

When I told someone on a forum that most internal styles were secret until recently and are difficult to master, he asked me why so many people are teaching them then. What I told him was, "Think about Katong Laksa". People know that Katong Laksa is tasty, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to make a lot of money from Laksa claims to sell authentic Katong Laksa. But how many are the real deal?

The tricky thing is that someone who does not know what Katong Laksa tastes like cannot tell just by going around looking at these various cooks' dishes. Even tasting them isn't going to help - all this person can say is whether a particular chap's "Katong Laksa" is tasty, not whether it's the real thing. And just because one particular version is delicious does not mean the real thing tastes at all like that. And if the real thing is unimaginably tastier than even the good fakes, this person would not know unless and until he actually tries the authentic recipe.

image source

In some cases, a person goes in with erroneous preconceptions and doesn't even know it when he's tried the good stuff. Even if one manages to find a stall selling true Katong Laksa and recognises it for what it is, that stall owner might not be the most talented of the real Katong Laksa cooks. The unfortunate seeker might then be doomed to a lifetime of good-but-not-great Laksa.

How then, can one be assured that the Katong Laksa one has found is authentic and of high quality? Why, if one has not only the recipe for the dish but also a detailed description of its look and taste. One could then watch a Laksa man at work to see if he's using the correct ingredients in the correct proportions in the correct way. Then, when the food is ready, one could compare what one tastes to the description of what one is supposed to taste. Sounds simple enough, yes?

Unfortunately, it's not. Very often, people have no faith in the recipe they have found even though it is corroborated by multiple reliable sources. They frequently have even less trust in the description of the final product - how could anything taste exactly like that? It can't be true because I have never experienced these sensations before. And so they toss away the guiding lights that would lead them to great Laksa and chase instead comfortingly common, pitifully prosaic, familiar and safe imitation "Katong" Laksa.

I guess not many people are meant to learn to cook or even just to taste good Katong Laksa. It's not really their fault, however. Perhaps it is just their fate.

Youtube comment audio preview - it works!

2009-09-20T14:13:00.000+08:00

So it seems that the Youtube comment audio preview function was added in response to the following joke/suggestion on xkcd:

click to go to xkcd

Guess what? It works as intended!

This guy apparently deletes his comments if he hears them before posting them.

It kills me a little inside as it patronisingly recites my benile (sic) and benign (sic) comment. I shy away into my turtleneck (sic) shell and delete it all, ashamed that i ever thought it worthwhile at all...

Too bad the most flagrantly stupid comments are going to survive anyway. Some people are so dumb they don't even know dumb when they hear it read back to them.

Taiji free sparring

2009-09-15T21:42:00.000+08:00

Finally!

The following clip is of a Taiji teacher free sparring with a Baji man - and they're both doing the real thing (though the Taiji fighter is clearly much more well-trained than the other guy).

You just don't see this sort of stuff on Youtube everyday.

Random posts

2009-09-14T05:39:00.000+08:00

Thanks to V.Divya Sai, I now have a Random Posts widget in my sidebar. It's useful for sending people to older and/or more obscure posts. However, it also has the drawback of occasionally throwing up posts you might prefer buried, so make sure you've deleted all the posts you want to keep six feet under before you install this widget.

Now, should I or should I not install his Popular Posts widget as well? Considering that I get only 30-40 visitors a week and that people seem to find my blog using some really unlikely keywords...

Another Taiji expert

2009-09-10T16:10:00.000+08:00

Mike, Greg, and I met Mushin and his charming wife yesterday night. He's an older Taiji man, and the moment I touched hands with him, I realised he totally outclassed me.

I was particularly impressed with a few things about him. Firstly, he was able to do instantaneous, perfect, undetectable weight change between his legs, as evinced by his ability to kick with both legs in sequence without moving anything else in the least. Good luck blocking his kicks.

Secondly, when he showed us some of the Wing Chun he used to do, it was quite different from the Yip Man WC I've seen and, as far as I can tell, completely in line with neijia theory. Even his chi sao was different from the chi sao I've seen and very similar to Ma Bagua circling hands.

Thirdly, his combat stepping was quick and ground-skimming, and enabled great angles of attack.

Needless to say, as a proficient Taiji man, he was also good at listening to power, "floating" a person from his root and casting them out, and negating and redirecting incoming forces with the barest of movements.

Interestingly, like ****, Mushin also has a background in Yuejiaquan. It's a really powerful, unreasonable style that I'm certain Jerry would love. I can see many (partial) similarities between YJQ and Xingyiquan, which perhaps bolsters the claim that Xingyi can be traced back to Yue Fei.

image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Fei

By the way, Mushin's one of the authors of Complete Wing Chun: The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun's History and Traditions. Now that I've seen his WC firsthand, I'm quite keen to pick that book up. Perhaps Amazon would be a good place to look. It seems that Kinokuniya also has copies in stock.

Wait a second... is that Mushin himself on the cover? :D

Masters of the IMA

2009-09-10T05:43:00.000+08:00

Masters of the IMA - a seriously good blog.

Really. If you do martial arts, you want to read it.

I'd put a link to it on my Links page a while back, but I thought I should mention it again here. Click on the banner above to hit the site.

The Ultimate Food Championships 2

2009-09-09T05:09:00.000+08:00

Dear food connoisseurs of the world,

We have a new king!

We had earlier scientifically proven - beyond all shadow of doubt* - that the Sushinho Roll is the undisputed tastiest thing to have ever graced a dinner table. However, in light of new evidence, we are reporting a new and more exciting truth!

*Since "proof" in the sciences is absolute, this supplemental phrase is probably redundant. But whatever.

While the Sushinho Roll is still the most delicious dinner dish of all time, it appears that Khao Niaow Ma Muang may be actually better tasting once dinner is over. Shocking but true! Because of this, some of our fellow cognoscenti have begun to question if we may have been overhasty in previously crowning the Sushinho Roll the king of all foods, but I say they are traitors and cowards! Our scientific method is infallible! Both proofs are equally true.** But one fact may be more factual than the other depending on which perspective we take.

**Yes, is is logically consistent to supplant a previously incontrovertible truth with a new incontestable fact. Both are equally valid realities even if they preclude each other by definition.

Enough of that! The exciting news here is that we have two kings now, and what better way is there to celebrate such news than to have the two kings marry each other?

Yes! Rejoice, my fellow worthies, early adopters, visionaries! Rejoice, for the Siamese twinning of our two kings shall become our third and most delicious king of all! We shall call our new king...

Mixed Masticatory Adventures!

This is an exciting time for us food fans. Hear me! In Mixed Masticatory Adventures, we shall combine our two kings in a manner that has never been thought of in the long history of cookery! Listen, for I speak now holy words:

We shall put the two dishes side by side, and eat one dish during dinner and the other during dessert!

Truly, such blending of tastes has never been seen before. No-one could have possibly realised just how shockingly tantalizing to the palate eating these two dishes could be. Instead of two separate kings, we now have one unified superking!***

***Some unfortunate gastronomes have attempted to eat both dishes at the very same time and sadly suffered digestive dysfunction. Influenced by such dishes as taco pizza and fusion-sushi, they claimed that our superking is actually not truly unitary but remains two separate items. Even worse, some amongst them have dared claim that our two kings cannot be mixed together effectively! Clearly they are wrong, and our proof is that our superking's name is Mixed Masticatory Adventures. Mixed!

Once again, I would like to remind our faithful congregation that our superking is the only Truth. If you come across any claims that foods which do not look and taste like the Ultimate Food can actually be tasty, it is your righteous duty to denounce them as fake without trial. After all, we had previously given such foods many chances, and they had in all cases proven bland next to our Truth.****

****In ALL cases. Truly. Ignore any information which contradicts this statement in any way whatsoever.

Therefore, do not bother testing any further. And if you do try other recipes anyway and find that they are more satisfying than our Truth, you are to explain away this sacrilegious finding in the most expedient manner possible.

Go in Faith, my children.

Good customer service at McDonald's

2009-09-08T03:13:00.001+08:00

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my pleasure at the courtesy shown to me today by Mr. Jason Lee, manager at the West Coast Park branch of your establishment.

I quite often find myself working late at night at McDonald's, not because of a particular liking for the food, but because of the dining environment. Nevertheless, I always end up eating a meal or two and purchasing another packet of fries and a drink besides. Since I work on my laptop, having access to power is very important to me.

Earlier this morning, when I arrived at West Coast McDonald's, I found that the power points in the restaurant were not usable. Initially, I was irate, certain that this had to be a harebrained decision by the decisions [oops] makers of the corporation. Harebrained because simple math shows us that a typical laptop draws approximately 1 cent of power per hour - a laughably minuscule amount.

When I asked for a feedback form to communicate my discontent, Jason quickly came forward to speak to me. He explained that the restaurant was being renovated and that some power points were off because of that. My irritation was quickly soothed by his friendly manner and his attempts to find solutions to my problem. We spoke at some length, and though I finally left for a different outlet, I departed in a good mood.

Congratulations on having in your employ such a customer-oriented, dedicated service professional.

The Ultimate Food Championships 1

2009-09-03T19:22:00.003+08:00

Dear food connoisseurs of the world,

I am proud to announce today that we have discovered the world's foremost gastronomic delight. Volunteer chefs from all over America, the food capital of the world, gathered yesterday in The Octopus to determine once and for all which dish is the most delicious of all.

We used a rigorous scientific method of testing in which many time-honoured recipes, each given form by one highly trained chef*, were matched against one another in nail-biting one-on-ones.

*Disclaimer: some chefs may have been more highly trained than others. However, all chefs claim to be true representatives of their cooking styles and therefore our test was absolutely scientific.

Through this scientifically scientific science experiment, we have proven conclusively** that the Sushinho Roll is the king of all edibles! All hail the king of The Octopus, the undefeated and undefeatable!

**Some stuffy people who call themselves "scientists" have informed us that science is by and large unable to definitively prove anything. They have also said that our experiment suffers from "terrible operational definitions, disgraceful sampling, and abominable control of confounding variables", whatever that means, and that it is the very definition of pseudoscience. However, we are not going to listen to them. They're only scientists, after all, not chefs.

Online IQ tests are unforgivably stupid

2009-09-02T16:32:00.002+08:00

It really irritates the hell out of me to see online "IQ" tests. So far, I have not come across a single example based on a clear understanding of the concept of unitary intelligence or rooted in sound psychometric principles. Unfortunately, as a cursory glance at comments left by test takers would suggest, the unquestioning Joe Average doesn't seem to realise that these tests are in no way valid. Perhaps more disturbing, many of my friends who have graduated from university appear proud to display their "IQ scores" from such tests in their Facebook profiles.

True story: someone I know served under a certain career officer during National Service - a Major - who had tacked onto his office wall the following proud proclamation:

Your IQ is 130.
You are a genius!

The guy had been so impressed by his result on an internet "IQ" test that he had had it blown up, printed out, and laminated. There's little doubt the man's a true genius.

Sadly, just as one often picks in helpless morbid fascination at a particularly odious pimple, I've often been unable to resist taking these "IQ" tests I have such an aversion for, just so I can foam at the mouth about how stupid and uninformed the creators of the tests are. My most recent sin was this little gem on Facebook.

With just 30 questions, the creator of the test has determined my intelligence level without a hint of uncertainty. Furthermore, I have been identified as a "genius" - a lay term which has no scientific counterpart. My putative IQ is 160+ - outside the range measured by professional IQ tests. It's also interesting that an IQ of 160+ (top 0.004% of the population or better) is described as being found in "less than 5% of the general population".

Absolute rubbish.

The questions in the test are complete nonsense as well. Few of the questions asked would ever be found in a real IQ test. And suitability aside, there were some major problems with the questions themselves. I shall discuss some of them here. The terms of service for this application state that its "text, data and images" are reserved for use by its creator, so I shall resist my temptation to explain the solution to each and every question. However, what I will do is describe in general terms the issues with these questions and leave you to take the test, if you will, and see if you agree with my assessments.

Q1: The author has a poor understanding of either sets or plant biology. I'm not sure which.
Q6: This question actually isn't too bad. It's ridiculously easy though.
Q12: Easily solvable, but the pattern is not expanded enough for one to form a certain answer.
Q17: I have a sneaking suspicion this is the question I answered "wrongly". There are two appropriate answers here, with one being correct in sequence and the other being right in direct comparison of analogical components. I chose the sequentially correct answer as that is the superior one, but the author may not have realised this truth.
Q18: This question misleads with the word "sequence". There is no sequence. There are instead a pair of transformations. And the first transformation is the reverse of the second. This epitomizes the stupid man's attempt at writing a difficult question.
Q19: Easily solved, but again poorly constructed.
Q22: Anagrams. Feh.
Q26: Wait a sec... isn't the answer "Aheaaiaead"?? This question only works because of the limited choices given, and then only poorly.
Q27: It appears the author hasn't been keeping up to date on recent controversies in astronomy.
Q29: I know what answer the author wants, but the correct answer is 5!

Please, people, leave test creation to the professionals. This is just disgusting.

Blogger plugins and more

2009-09-01T01:23:00.011+08:00

Because the new blog skin hasn't been working perfectly, I've been looking around for solutions to the more glaring issues. In my search, I came across a site that contains quite a few nice Blogger template modifications. You might find it useful too.

Visit the site here.

Mods I've implemented:

Main blog page shows post summaries in place of actual posts
A "related posts" box appears on each post page
Post date does not appear on Friends, Links, and About pages (by making .date-header not display)

Edit 09/Sep:

The "related posts" box was appearing too near the post body, so I changed the code:

margin-bottom: 0em;
margin-top: 0em;
padding-top: 3em;

There was also originally a large white space after the RP box which I removed by changing the following parameters:

height:50%;
min-height:50%;

Finally, I extended post summaries beyond their initial limits:

summary_noimg = 500;
summary_img = 500;

Hm. What else could I fix? The date headers were crowding the preceding posts, so I added space:

<b:if cond='data:post.dateHeader'> -- I located this line
<br/><br/> -- and added this line

The page still looked rather messy, and I finally removed date headers altogether and shifted posting dates into the after-post text. Much better.

To create more of a division between posts, I added background highlighting in White Smoke for post titles :

h3{ -- I located this line
background-color:#F5F5F5; -- and added this line

Beaten by a teenager, and the power of Ma Weiqi Bagua

2009-08-24T17:14:00.010+08:00

Funny thing happened to me in China: I got my ass handed to me on a platter by a teenager.

When I was training with Guo Shifu, a teenager in the group wanted to spar with me. We put on boxing gloves and I fought using the one and only Ma Bagua move I knew, refusing to use my old Xingyi or Bagua, or Taekwondo, or anything like that. The kid used the exact same move too, but he'd been practising that for months while I'd only learnt it that morning. I got punched up pretty bad, let me tell you that!

I tell myself that I was aching all over from training and had such rubbery legs that I couldn't remain in a proper stance for long during the match. Also, the shift from my previous standing grappling-based infighting tactics to dodge/strike-based outfighting movements really threw me. As well, the gloves I was so unused to hindered both my punching speed and vision (I was stupidly covering my own line of sight with the stupid fat thing). Lastly, I was trying to tap him rather than actually hurt him, which made my punches somewhat slower than they should have been. I don't think he was pulling back as much, though admittedly none of his punches hurt at all, so maybe he was too.

Whatever it is, I really got pwned by that kid. I'd say he hit me twice in the face - often with counters - for each solid hit I landed. It was a clear win and that's that. Quite embarrassing considering he'd only been training with Shifu for some 3-4 months and that he was bigger and slower than I was. Know what the worst thing is? His fight with me was only the second fight he had ever had in his life. :/

After the match, Shifu was so disgusted by our lack of fighting sense that he taught us a few basic combat drills. No, these were not any less tiring to do then the foundation exercises. And they were much more difficult to do correctly too, since they were rooted in the basic movements I still had not yet mastered.

After an hour of that, training ended. I was then politely challenged by yet another teenager to a match. Mike finds it hilarious that I got challenged twice in just a few days there while he'd never been asked in three separate visits - he believes that I do tend to somehow attract antagonism. :/

Anyway, this second opponent was lighter and significantly faster than the first, and he'd been practising for a couple months longer too. He'd also had significant sparring experience with a variety of opponents, including a 6'+ sanda fighter. Right off, it was clear to me that this was the more skilled of my two opponents and I would have to use guile if I were to turn away a second helping of humble pie.

Realising he was nimbler and in better physical condition than I was, I drew him into expending his energy on futile attacks and countered or launched my own offensive only when he started to slow down. Again, I was using unfamiliar Ma Bagua outfighting rather than my old Xingyi infighting, but the hour of drills before this second fight proved very helpful. Though I resembled far more a waddling duck than a graceful swan, I managed to drop a number of hits square on my opponent's face while receiving only one good punch in return. I even once downed him with a straight to the forehead when I failed to pull my punch enough.

* * *

Shifu's told us that we may spar with gloves on from time to time, but that doing it more than once every month, say, would likely warp our fighting form. Also, he cautioned us to hit very lightly when going for the head. I still can't generate power correctly in this style, but I have felt his power firsthand and strongly suspect he could easily knock me senseless with just a single basic "jab"*. Just as in Xingyi, there appears to be no such thing as a light hit in Ma Bagua; each and every strike is designed to immediately end the fight. It's just the sort of thing I like. ^_^

*Not at all the same as a boxing jab, but that name's convenient enough.

Speaking of power, here's a clip in which we tried to capture the force behind Shifu's hits on film. Unfortunately, as the neijia people reading this might have immediately guessed, much of the impact of his blows was not visible. When hit, I felt a tremendous avalanche of power bowl me over. Despite bracing the kicking pad against my forward shoulder, pressing firmly against that arm with the other hand with elbow tight against the body, standing sideways to the direction of the strikes, and sinking my weight, my breath was compressed out of me and I was sent staggering off-camera. However, the video only shows me being knocked aside and (of course) fails to capture what I felt inside. We gave up on this task after two attempts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkFnGZHu0xk

Perhaps a better representation of his power would be this photo, taken several minutes after Shifu had accidentally grazed my ribs with his fingers (count 'em!) while flicking a loose punch at me. His control is really something, and I've experienced punches from him, too quick for me to intercept, painlessly touching me on the tip of my nose. This was an "oops" situation, and the shock that passed through my body from the accidental tap made it clear to me that I did not want to take one of his serious hits.

Covo Bistro & Lounge: a delectable experience

2009-08-19T22:32:00.007+08:00

This is something I wrote in November last year but didn't post for some reason.

After Mad Jack Cafe turned me off today with their you-may-not-plug-your-laptop-into-our-power policy, I migrated to nearby Greenwood Avenue in search of another food/work haunt. Greenwood Fish Market interested me, but the fact that dining is entirely alfresco decided me against them; I need my air-conditioning. Ambling further down the row of shops, I was greeted politely outside Covo Bistro & Lounge by CK, who I believe is manager of the place.

I'll admit I'm a sucker for a soft touch and it didn't take her all that much work to persuade me to enter and take a seat. She directed me right to the power point and melted away, only to soon reappear with a glass of iced water and a tray of toast.

Covo is a tiny place with fewer than ten indoor tables, but the glass walls which let in daylight forfend the claustrophobia that might mount in another similarly-sized diner. Yellow light from hanging lamps soften the mood, and drapes and furniture placed strategically lend an intimate atmosphere. A little square fish pond just outside has a continuous stream of water falling into it from a beam overheard; a touch of movement in tranquility. And are those Diana Krall and Ella Fitzgerald I hear crooning in the background just loudly enough to be apprehended?

As befitting a restaurant of this appearance, the service here is polite and discreetly solicitous. Yes, oxymorons are fun. Anyway, CK did not hesitate to recommend a drink or a soup, but yielded immediately to my own opinions. She swung by a couple of times to see if there was anything I needed, and was happy to answer my curiosity about this sauce or that food item. And did I already say she brought water and toast without my having to ask for either?

Speaking of that, the toast had a paper-thin crust and was warm and light inside. I know I was chewing slowly and nodding as I ate it.

Their "no regrets" (according to CK) mushroom soup ($9) with chunks of mushroom in it arrived next. It was thick and creamy, smooth with a little texture, and not at all like the overpowering canned stuff you get from a less classy place. If the usual is a club, this was an exquisite rapier.

My main course of steamed black cod papillote in shoyu sauce ($36) came with mashed potato, delicately sauteed baby corn, Brussels sprouts, and alfalfa. Incidentally, gourmetfood tells me that en papillote refers to the French method of cooking in a paper pouch. Consistently, all the items on the plate exceeded expectations. Except for the fish, that is, which was fairly ordinary and bland, if fresh enough. Perhaps it was meant to be contrasted against the various stronger tastes on the plate; if so, it succeeded.

The tiny sweet onions in the shoyu sauce exploded deliciously when I bit into them. The shoyu itself was very light and not at all intrusive. Even when I pierced the paper pouch with my fork by accident and caused the sauce to leak out and contaminate everything, the vegetables continued to taste just as good as they had before. The mash turned out to be studded with sweet potato, and the chewiness imparted by the latter made it a surprisingly substantial experience. I'm no fan of corn, but the corn they served contained such a glorious juxtaposition of sensations that I savoured every last bite.

A number of hours after lunch, I was beginning to feel a bit peckish again, and their calamari strips ($12) hit just the spot. The calamari was neither too chewy nor too soft and was fried in a light, crispy batter which went really well with the sweet-tangy dip.

In summary, Covo is a charming little bistro with elegantly scrumptious food and great service. Each portion is a trifle small, but the entire meal ends up being satisfactorily filling. It is a slightly pricey sort of diner, however, and I'm not likely to stop by here alone too often. It's a nice place to take your date though, or perhaps your parents.

Covo Bistro & Lounge
16 Greenwood Avenue
Hillcrest Park
Tel: 6466 8103

Ma Weiqi Baguazhang - vids 1

2009-08-17T11:26:00.006+08:00

In this first video, Guo Shifu hits a padded-up Feng Xiang lightly. Feng Laoshi still goes flying into the couch pretty darned hard!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPc5UEgFBIo

You know, one of the things I've always liked most about the Xingyi that I used to do is that an insane amount of power is packed into a very tiny movement. Now, one of the things that I like most about Ma Weiqi Bagua is that it's the most in-your-face, one-hit-you're-dead Bagua style that I've seen. I like to think of it as Xingyi power with Bagua evasiveness - beautiful, deadly stuff.

The founder of Ma style Bagua - Ma Weiqi - was after all considered the best fighter amongst Dong Haichuan's many students. According to Wikipedia (which I am loathe to trust or quote :p), his style of Bagua is characterized by "hammer blows". He was also infamous for killing way too many people in challenge matches, each time with just one blow. You won't be surprised to hear he died rather young to assassination. :p

The second video is of Shifu testing some basic Bagua hits on focus mitts. Unless I'm quite mistaken, this sort of practice is not done very often at all. Shifu's said quite a few times that Ma Bagua's training regimen does not contain contact-based body conditioning - punching bags, slapping walls, hitting the self... these things are not necessary or desirable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urW5ZjgO_vk

When I first saw Shifu move like this, I was a bit surprised because I thought the strikes looked much more like Western boxing punches than the Xingyi techniques I was used to. However, once he taught us some of the principles behind these hits, it became abundantly clear to me that this is all indeed Bagua and not some sort of boxing-influenced corruption. Again, I can't explain, sorry. You'll just have to take my word for it, or disbelieve me, or else just choose to keep an open mind.

Lastly, but undoubtedly most importantly (to martial artists), here's an 8-minute-long teaching video that I've subbed in English. In this video, he covers some important concepts in fighting/sparring/push hands, namely:
1. hu zhong xin - guarding the centre
2. da qian - attacking the beginning,
3. wen jin - asking for force,
4. bi shi ji xü - avoiding the substantial and attacking the empty,
5. fa jin - generating power,
and
6. gun dong - rolling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYFcUxep9TE

I hope you've enjoyed these videos. There is a lot more sitting on my hard disk waiting to be translated and uploaded. Check back again in a while and/or subscribe to our Youtube channel.

Ma Weiqi Baguazhang - training in Dongguan part 2

2009-08-17T10:05:00.006+08:00

Over the next 6 days, we did the same things day in, day out. In the mornings at the park, we started with 10 solid minutes of Ma-style Bagua's Jiamazhuang followed by 10 evil minutes of Santishi. Then we would "walk" - in our fighting stance - several hundred steps (Mike estimates I did 600-700 on day one; on the last day, Mike went twice the distance I did) up and down slopes; this was my most feared and hated exercise, for it left me gasping and all but screaming in pain every 20-some steps. It took me over an hour to complete this part of the training on my first morning, and my legs were as rubber when I finally finished it. Then came 1,000 counts of a shoulder exercise. That's it, except that on some mornings, Shifu got us to join the teenagers' class in sparring exercises.

In the evenings in the wuguan, it would be 10 minutes of Jiama again, then lots and lots and lots of a half-mobile zhuanggong that is just ridiculously hard/painful to do. That's all we did, every day for six days. And we're supposed to keep this same daily schedule (or at least a 1-2 hour version of it) back home in Singapore for another year before we learn anything else. Yep, that's what traditional training is like - boring and agonizing. But this is precisely what the three of us have always wanted. No pretty forms for us, please. Just conditioning and sparring drills.

(You'll have noticed that I've been rather coy with my descriptions of the exercises we performed. That reticence is intentional, for I'm not supposed to share our training methods with anyone not from our school. Sorry.)

Is there any point to this sort of training though, you might wonder. Standing, walking, exercising the shoulders... is any of that supposed to help us fight?

Of course my answer is a firm "yes". Even in just 6 days, we felt significant changes take place in our bodies. Shifu has had years and years of the same sort of training and this is what he is able to do to any of us with impunity:

Think that looks fake? Well, I've a video of him doing something superficially similar to Mike. We were taking a break from filming some instructional videos one afternoon and we decided to have a bit of fun. Mike took hold of both Guo Shifu's wrists and bore down. Shifu then used whole-body power (developed through our training methods) to uproot Mike, hoist him into the air, walk a few steps with Mike still suspended helplessly, and then toss him. I tried to cushion Mike's fall with a helpful arm and got bowled over for my trouble. Here's the vid on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqvH_6UvIXg

Of course, that would probably not have been possible if Mike had not cooperatively gripped hard and stiffened his arms. But this isn't an actual fighting technique. It's just a fun test/demonstration of whole-body power. However, try it yourself with any partner (who cooperates only by holding on tightly) about your own weight and you'll quickly find that it's pretty much impossible for the average person to do.

Anyway, not all amazing feats need cooperative partners. Any good fighter, whether he practises an internal style or an external one, will have some way of making an opponent react the "right" way. During one of our morning training sessions, Shifu was testing the senior students' push hands skill. Afterwards, he gave the kids and newbies (that's us :) a short talk on push hands, and I was lucky enough to be selected to help him give a demonstration.

We stood facing each other and reached out so that each of our hands touched one of the other person's. He asked me to push on either hand, and I had barely exerted any strength with my right hand on his left when I went flying-tripping-stumbling 4 or 5 metres to my right. I had felt nothing - I was just standing there one moment and sailing through the air the next. Understanding what must have happened there (he had indeed attacked my left hand the instant I pushed with the right) but a bit confused nonetheless, I returned to him and touched hands again. This time, he didn't even have to say anything: the moment I touched him, I went flying 4 metres to my left.

As the classics say, 方人在三丈之外，伤人在五尺之内 (fang ren zai san zhang zhi wai, shang ren zai wu che zhi nei). Translated, this says: when you elect to toss someone without hurting him, your force should send him a minimum of 30 feet/9 metres; when you wish to instead injure him, you should move him no more than 5 feet/ 1.5 metres. That actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it in terms of impulse: of course a benign push would propel its target much further than a killing blow powered by the same force. But I think what most people choke on is the notion that anyone could with a short shove send another person more than 30 feet across level ground.

It's too bad that we didn't have a camera rolling when I was being sent stumbling around at the park. But here's something almost as good: a old 30-second clip of Shifu tossing another student about using just one hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjD2vY0WXx4

Intrigued by what you've seen so far? Watch this space: there are a lot more demonstration and teaching videos on the way. I will spotlight a few of them and try to explain what was going on at the time we filmed them. You might also want to check out our Youtube channel for more videos and our nascent English language website for information about our school, stories and legends, interviews, and other material.

Speaking of interviews, have you read the story published in the Guangzhou Daily about Guo Shifu? It's a particularly interesting read because both the reporter and some bystander got in on the action and "tested" Shifu's skill! Many kungfu teachers are afraid to demonstrate their skills on non-students either because they fear injuring someone needlessly or because they are fakes who can't affect uncooperative subjects. This interview is one of the rare non-partisan accounts of successful high-level kungfu demonstrations on unaffiliated parties. Read it here.