bengquan.net

Nice Xingyi

2010-08-11T16:48:38-07:00

I only just discovered this one (though it's been up for a while). Enjoy:

Looks awesome to me.

Xingyi Links and Clips

2010-07-26T18:54:09-07:00

So Dennis showed up in the comments and asked for a link exchange. I'm fine with that - whether he links back here or not :) - so here is Dennis doing some xingyi:

I'm not going to say much about it but it looks pretty good to me.

Here's the original post. The same guy also has taijimax.com for those interested in taiji.

So that is it for this particular post - it's a bit trivial I know but you go to start somewhere. :)

Better late than never?

2010-07-24T12:36:53-07:00

Obviously, it has taken me a while to follow up on my promise of new posts. We're getting there ...

So far - the JKD has turned into something much more escrima oriented. This is good for me and I'm finding a lot of synergy between this and the Bagua that I was doing last year. I'm honestly quite surprised at how much in common I'm finding between the JKD/Escrima and Bagua. This is seriously good stuff - the flow in the escrima is related to what I found in bagua. In the classes I'm doing there is lots of talk of circles and angles in similar ways to what I learnt in bagua. All that said the 'body method' is different from Bagua so that is something different (to be fair we're not doing a lot of technique - it's more focussed on flow, distance and angles).

I'm also picking up some xingyi again - plus ça change - I can't really say a lot there because it's only just started up. In the past I've found xingyi to really connect with. We'll see though - different teacher, different school so who knows? I guess xingyi + escrima is going to be kind of like bagua? Anyway, if it doesn't work out then I'll try something else there is lots of stuff around.

Luo Dexiu in Paris

2010-05-02T21:56:49-07:00

Not really a proper post but I thought people might be interested in this video of Luo Dexiu's seminar in Paris:

Blogging, again

2010-05-02T21:51:36-07:00

Although this blog has almost completely died out - indeed it was even down for a while - I'm recently feeling much more motivated to try and get this going again. I've had some pretty big changes in my personal life lately - nothing bad! - I've moved from France to the US via a few months spent in Germany, Austria and Australia.

I've obviously (and unfortunately) had to leave my old teacher and classmates and I've not yet found something that entirely fills the gap. On the upside I have found some very cool Jeet Kune Do classes which is actually turning out to be surprisingly similar to the Bagua I was doing. It is lot of fun and more aggressive than what I'm used to (might be good for me) it is certainly going to fix some holes in my technique that I didn't know about and perhaps a few that I suspected. I'm definitely liking it.

On the downside - what I miss about Bagua so far, apart from my friends - the emphasis on health. I got into this stuff because Tai Chi fixed my back - once I realised how much difference Tai Chi was making to my back I was hooked and wanted more martial to go with my arts. Heh.

Anyways, as far as this blog goes, it is back. I'm also going to go back and revise all the old posts - fix up the grammar etc. Fortunately I never wrote all that much so it shouldn't take too long.

So, hopefully, fun times ahead! I've got a lot to write about - some books (The Gift of Fear, The Book of Martial Power, some others ...), some new exercises (Kettlebells!). I've moved the blog over to a different platform (only because wordpress is soul destroying) which I like but has some issues (like HTML in RSS feeds...); if it doesn't work out I'll try something else but for now it seems like fun. I've got a heap of half-written fragments, I'm really hoping to get them sorted out and posted soon!